A New Years Day Lunch in Jalan Kia Peng

Characters
Major Cik Bainun (Mother) Raja Zulkarnain (Father) Mahani (Eldest daughter) Meriam (2nd daughter) Kam (Youngest son) Shahrir (Meriams husband) Minor Latifah (Niece) Fuad (Houseboy) Jamilah Jamboo (Kams exmistress) Sabrina (Kams daughter) Zarina (Meriams daughter) Chew Mei Mei/Mazlinda (Kams wife) Mahmud (Mahanis husband) Various other relatives of the household (grandchildren and inlaws)

A New Years Day Lunch in Jalan Kia Peng

highlights the

contrasting values between Malay family cultural traditions versus modernization and the changing Malay mindset. It portrays a humorous view of the generation gap in thinking and importance on family values. The three grown up children Mahani, Meriam and Kam, as well as the rest of their large extended family, gather at their parents spacious wooden family home in Jalan Kia Peng, Kuala Lumpur, every New Year for lunch (an adopted English tradition). Despite the house being a stubborn symbol of the unchanging culture and tradition withheld by the late Raja Zulkarnian and Cik Bainun, their children are a different matter. They are the new generation (Melayu Baru) who are successful, modernised and have significantly less respect for familial values and customs. As a result, the customs that they follow are merely rituals ingrained as a force of habit from when the childrens strict father was still alive.

Now that their father has passed away, the

faade of being on polite

terms with each other ends as Mahani and Kams relationship become increasingly
strained due to suspicions that Kam is planning to destroy the family home and develop the prime land for his ambitious condominium project. In the end, although the badminton match ended with a show of good faith between brother and sister, the whole show turned out be as possible. The story ends without a real conclusion how will Cik Bainun react to Kams betrayal? Will the traditional house: a defiant symbol against the modernisation brought about by developers and contractors; be torn down and reconstructed as a shimmering condominium with deep pitched Minangkabau roofs? That, as well as other questions, is up to the reader to ponder.

an act

as Cik Bainun overhears Kam threatening

Shahrir in order to convince his family to allow him to knock down the house as soon

The Inheritance

Characters
Major Tajuddeen (Son-in-law) Mahmud (Son-in-law) Usman Khalid (Father-in-law) Minor Usman Khalids wife (Mother-inlaw) Aishah (Tajuddeens wife, eldest daughter) Aniza (Mahmuds wife) Ahmad (Son-in-law) Tengku Kamil (Acquaintance)

Imagine this scene: a wealthy old man has recently passed away. His funeral is underway, attended by the prominent and the rich. The family mourns: four daughters, no sons but four sons-in-law. The atmosphere seems sombre and sad, but is it really? With no proper heir in the family, one big question remains: which son-in-law will get the biggest share in the deceaseds will?

That is the premise to

The Inheritance, a story about greed, cunning and

shattered dreams. What began as a funeral for the rich Usman Khalid becomes a battle for the deceaseds massive inheritance between two sons-in law: Mahmud and Tajuddeen. Both have distinct opposite personalities: Mahmud is as crass, lavish and popular as Tajuddeen is responsible, thrifty and disliked among his in-laws. However, behind Tajuddeen filial, dependable faade lies an inner greed to monopolize the riches left behind by his late father-in-law. The equally sly Mahmud, who is aware of his brother-in-laws motives, devices a plan to stop Tajuddeen from attaining the inheritance. The climax comes when Mahmud arranges for his late father-in-laws Chinese mistress to come from Tanjong Malim to the funeral, together with 3 illegitimate sons each with their late fathers prominent jaw and shallow, fish-like eyes. With that, years of Tajuddeens careful planning and acquiring of his father-inlaws fortune comes crashing down as he realises that he is no longer eligible to claim the inheritance.

Similar to A New Years Day Lunch in Jalan Kia Peng, Karim Raslan once again utilises a dead person as a basis and as a major character for his short story. The events leading to the climax all revolve around Usman Khalid, his devious sons-in-law and the massive inheritance that is the driving force behind Mahmud and Tajuddeens animosity. The story highlights how greed can make liars and fools out of ordinary men, even men as disciplined and strict as Tajuddeen. Similarly, Mahmud, acting as a foil to Tajuddeens character, may have dark motives of his own by intercepting Tajuddeens efforts to claim the fortune. The cynical and humorous end to the story reminds readers that our lives are governed by twists of fate and that we should never count our chickens before they truly hatch.

The Mistress

Characters
Major Mahmud Mokhtar (Son) Mokhtar Mirzan (Father) Datin Zeraphina/Siti (Mistress) Minor Mahmuds mother Mahmuds aunt

A father that has passed away. An estranged mother. A son with motives of his own. And a fat, aging mistress whose cunning runs as deep as her gall. Add all of that together, and you get

The Mistress: a curious story about one mans resolve Datin Zeraphina
and her first meeting with

in meeting his late fathers mistress for reasons more known to him. From the description of

Mahmud,

it is clear that the persona has mixed feelings about the woman. She

was a courtesan, a common whore (such as the persona calls her) and yet she is enigmatic, seductive and cunning enough to enchant the young man even though she is old and physically unattractive. Such is the reason why the persona thinks that his father kept Datin Zeraphina after all these years as a mistress. She was an independent woman, cunning and shrewd in her use of her

sexuality

and

subtle

dominance over her men to get what she truly wanted: wealth, power and status.
She was a woman with resources and contacts, and her vanity was limitless when it came to getting what she wanted: even if it meant lying to the son of a client who was already dead. However, the true purpose of the meeting is obscure what is written in the letters that Mokhtar Mirzan left for his mistress and why did the persona hand them over to Datin Zeraphina? Why did a dying Datin Zeraphina take all the trouble to meet Mahmud if she was sure he was blackmailing her? One may assume that the letters are actually Mokhtar Mirzans final will before his death a will stating the inheritance that was to be left to Datin Zeraphina. But whether or not the fortune

really fell into her hands, or how she was planning to use it, is unclear because Datin Zeraphina died a month after Mahmuds meeting with her. What the reader does know, however, that Mahmud Mirzan is not the gullible, innocent man that he seems. He met Datin Zeraphina because he had a plan, and his plan was carried out successfully enough in such a way that he had subtly gained his revenge. The diamond-studded short story.

cufflinks, a symbol of the Datins final act of

vanity, eventually becomes Mahmuds prize as he had the last laugh in this intriguing

Sara and the Wedding

Characters
Major Sara Fakaruddin Kak Tipah (Unmarried cousin) Ramli (Second cousin) Minor Shahnaz (Saras little sister) Azman (Shahnazs fianc) Mak Cik Zainah (Aunt) Mak Cik Khatijah (Aunt)

The title

Sara and the Wedding may be misleading, because Sara, the not the one getting married. On the

main character of this short story, is definitely

contrary, she is a 29-going-on-30 year old advocate and solicitor, iron lady extraordinaire who supports half of the familys expenses with her gutsy job defending Datuks and Tan Sris. At home, however, she is known as the unfashionable and unmarried old virgin, the fat sister who is fast approaching her expiry date and is not expected to have any suitors in the near future. Depressed and defeated by family pressure and her own unrealised romantic fantasies, Sara reaches a low point as she nearly breaks down in front of her sisters wedding pelamin because it was unevenly pinned. However, a sudden bout of

self

realisation and assertion of freedom gave Sara a new sense of life. No, she wasnt
going to be put down by this wedding! Of course there had to be someone out there

for her someone brighter, more charming and less arrogant than her sisters fianc Azman. No one was going to stop her from having fun! With a renewed sense of determination, Sara wanders into the garden, but a short encounter with her second cousin Ramli leads her to question the

power of

her own sexuality. Was this what it was like to be wanted as a woman? Could
she the undesirable and underappreciated woman, really experience power by attaining sexual freedom? In any sense, she was determined to try. Throughout the rest of the evening she discretely stole looks at Ramli, and with the knowledge that Ramli had been watching her too, she acted more boisterously than usual, so much so that her relatives wondered if she was in love too. The ending of the story provides readers with an unexpected twist and another open end Sara finally gets the sexual liberation that she had wanted, but her assertion of self wins over. As her cries of

Rape, rape! carry over the garden

Sara was not just convincing herself of the potency of her own womanhood, she was proving to her family that she, like any other woman, was someone to be desired, to be wanted, and was powerful in her own sexual liberty.

Neighbours

Characters
Major Datin Sarina Mr. Kassim (Neighbour) Mrs. Kassim (Neighbour) Minor Mus (Datin Sarinas husband) Amina (servant girl)

Every ladys

fantasy

is to have a

handsome neighbour,

and that is

exactly what Datin Sarina gets when Mr. Kassim, a distinguished looking and terribly attractive young lawyer moves into the house next door. Disarmed by his charming smile and polite demeanour, Datin Sarina develops some sort of infatuation for her neighbour. However, there is a catch: Mr. Kassim is already married to Mrs. Kassim, a woman that Datin Sarina is curious to meet. Therefore, it is from this

obsession

to dig into other peoples affairs which eventually leads Datin Sarina into a
shocking web of revelations which reveal more than what she bargained for as she witnessed the Kassims in their bedroom. In truth, Datin Sarina is a nosy, middle aged woman whose penchant for dispensing gossip earned her the nickname

Radio Sarina

among her affluent

socialite circle. No amount of shame or self restraint can keep her from spying into her new neighbours master bedroom from her verandah, which she does with much self-justification on the pretence of watching the sunrise. What Datin Sarinas real motive, however, was to catch a glimpse of her handsome Mr. Kassim again. Curiosity kills the cat, and Datin Sarina has no one but herself to blame when she finally realises that through her own selfish persistence, she had broken through the fantasies and the lies she had built around herself in short:

her whole life

was a sham. All this while she had made justifications for the things that she was
lacking: her lost youth, her physical unattractiveness, and her weak and unfulfilling emotional life. She was a

parasite,

a creature that fed on others for her own

emotional satisfaction, and it was the truth behind the Kassims that finally made her realise what a horrible person she had been all along.